“You seem to have catarrh, and that is the more reason you shouldn’t’t take cold beer, until you are through with the harmless disease. So in the interim, Iya Basira would give you a bottle of beer, of room temperature.”
“Forget it; I will still drink my criminally cold beer, mortuary standard. Catarrh, yes, has come and it will go. Whether you drink cold things or not, it has its tenure and once that tenure expires, it will go and good health will be sworn in.”
Once you sue the Federal Government or sue Lai for lying against you, all that will happen is, there will be substituted charges and you will lose your bail
“Clown, I wonder why you have not been going around with Ali Baba or AY, in a world where jocosity is money-spinner. Or don’t you know that all these comedians get mega-bucks for making people laugh? After all, government said we have got out of recession and yet we are suffering. So we need things that will make us forget our sorrow.”
“Kay, do you know that Ali Baba once recalled that his son never believed that dad was working anywhere? According to him, the boy would tell anybody who cared to listen that ‘oh, my father doesn’t go to work; he only goes to play!” (Laughter)
“Look o, Iya Basira is yet to bring our catfish, almost one hour after the thing was ordered for. Even though its tantalising aroma from the kitchen has been whiffing past my nostrils, making me salivate like a caged dog that is barred from reaching a stewed meat.”
“Well, while not ruling out the fact that the fish may not be ready, it is also on record that such delay tactics are common with beer sellers. While your ordered pepper-soup is still bubbling on fire, they will keep ‘shelling’ you with beer and by the time you are set to eat the catfish, for instance, you would have drunk three bottles…and when the pepper soup lands, they will ensure that it is indeed peppery, requiring you to drink no fewer than three additional bottles.”
“Charles, the vigilant drunk! I think you need to gather beer drinkers in Lagos and environs, to a seminar, and lecture them on how to be a successful drunk. Under that circumstance, this Iya Basira’s prank of delaying our catfish to make us drink more beer will come as a special module.”
“I hear you Kay…en en, when is the next list of looters going to be released by the Information Minister? Because I read in a publication last week that Lai Mohammed, the minister, promised that a fresh list was due for release.”
“Why are they releasing their names without telling us the amounts recovered from each of them? Then, another ridiculous aspect of it all is that, most of these people they are calling looters are still accused persons who have not been convicted for any fraud.”
“Brilliant you. And let me take the baton of speech from you by saying these people’s lawyers will just be chuckling now, filing their suit for libel and defamation of character.”
“Hmmm, you think that can work in Nigeria? Once you sue the Federal Government or sue Lai for lying against you, all that will happen is, there will be substituted charges and you will lose your bail. They will order you remanded in Kuje prison until maybe after the 2019 presidential election.”
“Yes, 2019 election…oh, our third bottles are ‘leaking’ already, and we are still waiting for the catfish pepper-soup; ‘dia is God o’..hic…as for the 2019 presidential election, remember I told you that Buhari would run.”
“I’m sorry that I challenged your clairvoyance; I was only considering the President’s tottering state of health at the period. But now, I think he is strong enough.”
“Are you sure? Why didn’t he sit on the floor like other faithful to pray at a recent jumat service? Why sitting on a chair? Is that not an indication of failing health? But in Nigeria, health is not an issue. After all, there was a time a clinically dead President was ruling.”
“Please Charles, I’m here to drink. It will be a great disservice to my personality if my wife hears that security agents arrested me at a beer parlour for defaming the President.”
“Okay o. So this loot of a thing, after having been recovered, should not stay too long in the government coffers for two reasons.”
“Oh, thank God; Iya Basira’s delayed pepper-soup has landed at last, just like a typically delayed budget…yes, what are the two reasons, my beer-parlour economic expert?”
“If the loot stays for too long in government coffers without it being expended on a project early enough, it will surely be re-looted.”
“Okay, your second reason, which is expected to be as funny as the first one.”
“Yah; the money should be distributed to each financially disadvantaged Nigerian at the rate of N10, 000 per head. Rest assured that for three months, there will be no suicide incident in the form of anyone rushing to the Third Mainland Bridge to jump into the Lagoon. Or someone going to hang himself inside a church building, so as to enter paradise on sympathetic grounds.”
“You are indeed a drunkard economist. No economics department of a university or polytechnic will give you a good grade…please, our bottles are ‘leaking’. Let your Bakassi-shooting Iya Basira replenish our stock.”
